CDT Ltd. Engineers Adopt Much-loved Hospice to Help Final Wishes Come True
Kinmel Bay-based engineering company Continental Diamond Tool Ltd have made a £1,000 donation to St Kentigern Hospice in St Asaph and pictured are, from left, Becky McNay, Advanced Nurse Practitioner; Helen Turberville and Michaela Lawton of CDT with Alwyn Mason, corporate fund raiser at St Kentigern Hospice.
A much-loved North Wales hospice has been adopted as a favored charity by Continental Diamond Tool Ltd (CDT) after staff voted overwhelmingly to support it.
St Kentigern Hospice, which serves Denbighshire, eastern Conwy and western Flintshire, was chosen by CDT because of the “wonderful care” it has shown for relatives of team members, including both parents of engraver and dispatch officer Helen Turberville.
The company, which supplies sophisticated parts for production machinery for Rolls-Royce and other aerospace companies, has made its first donation to the charity with Helen handing over a cheque for £1,000 at the hospice in St Asaph. CDT employees encourage others to join them in supporting this worthwhile cause. You can make a donation here.
Their donation was made to mark the 40th anniversary of this CDT location – one of only two of its kind in the UK that specializes in precision diamond grinding products - which employs 40 skilled staff at its factory on the Tir Llwyd Industrial Estate in Kinmel Bay.
Helen said: “My parents, Maureen and Ted Felton, from Kinmel Bay, were both here and the care and support the hospice gave was a great comfort to them and to us as a family.
“My mum used to come to the day centre here and made many things I still have at home including a tie-dyed silk scarf.
“Then she was a resident here and was struggling with her mobility and they helped her a lot before she passed away here.
“My dad was in hospital in Liverpool and I asked for him to be moved to Ysbyty Glan Clwyd and they said he only had a matter of days so I requested that he come to St Kentigernand the staff here managed to get him in.
“He knew we were trying to get him here because on one of his good days we managed to tell him and it meant a lot to all of us as a family.
“St Kentigern is a wonderful place and my mum made a lot of friends here. It’s very comforting here and I’m delighted that CDT are supporting it.”
The hospice has been extended to 12 beds from eight but it also provides extensive day care and respite services as well as wide range of therapies and over the past 12 months more than 600 people from across the area have used its services.
They cost £3.6 million a year with three-quarters of that raised by St Kentigern team, of fundraisers who are currently working on one of the year’s major events, the Twilight Trek which takes place on Saturday, June 29.
They also provide a Wish Ambulance which aims to make the final wishes of its residents come true and they have included a lady in her 30s who wanted to spend a final couple of hours in her own home.
Another patient wanted to see a fireworks display for the last time and the Royal National Lifeboat Institute came in to stage a show
CDT are now partnering with St Kentigern to support the hospice and make those dreams come true. You can extend your support, too, by making a donation here.
CDT Finance Manager Michaela Lawton said: “It is a fantastic cause, it’s local and after a discussion with our employees about which charities to support St Kentigern was put forward and it was a no-brainer really.
“I came to visit the hospice and was so impressed by the work they are doing and by the fantastic range of services and activities they provide, not only to their patients but to their families at the most difficult time in their lives.
“This is the 40th anniversary of the company and we want to set up a long-term partnership with St Kentigern to mark that and we aim to support them with regular donations in the future.”
Advanced Nurse Practitioner Becky McNay, from Wrexham, joined St Kentigern four years ago and she said: “It’s been amazing. I’ve really loved it. It’s such a rewarding place to work.
“You can’t just come here to a place like this because it’s a job. You have to really want to do it and it’s really great to build relationships with the patients and with their families because they play such an important role.
“I had always wanted to do palliative care from when I was 16 when my nan came to live with us and she was terminally ill.
“Here’s it’s not just about the process of dying. There’s much more to it than that with respite care and outpatients services and the complementary therapies we offer like massages and a wellbeing programme which covers a different topic each week.
“There’s also now advanced care planning because if someone is diagnosed with a life-limiting illness it’s important to have advice on wills and legal matters and of course it is very rewarding if you can be there for someone emotionally as well.
“I really enjoy the one to one care and the privilege of having time to second with patients and their families – you just wouldn’t get the same amount of time in an acute ward of a hospital.”
The precision manufacturing company was founded in 1984 as Consort Precision Diamond and in 2018 was bought and rebranded by Continental Diamond Tool, based in New Haven, Indiana.
It makes a range of highly specialised diamond dressers and grinding tools for advanced manufacturing industries, including the aerospace, automotive, medical and semi-conductor sectors.
More than 60 per cent of the company’s products are exported to 30 countries, with sales growing particularly strongly across Europe and Asia, as well as North America.